Speech by DrYam
I was the groom and this is what I wrote as one of the readings that the best woman read out for us. Hope you like it. It was written after a long search on website after website for a decent reading that wasn't cheesy or filled with saccharine. I think it'll appeal more to the guys in the audience but my wife also liked it too. Enjoy
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Speech Type: Maid of honour/Best woman
Speech Creator: DrYam
Speech Date: 11/09/2015 08:49:16
A study on the definition of love.
It's been hard to pick a reading that describes love. Because what is love? It means different things, to different people. Songs, TV or books all say something different and so how can you talk about it in a reading on someone's wedding day, if no one seems to know what it is.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood says its “A force from above, a sky scraping dove”. Wow. That doesn't help at all to be honest. Apparently “love lifts us up where we belong”, but what does that even mean? We should all be high on love? Another song, I forget by who, said “all you need is love, love is all you need”, but let's be honest, you do need other things, like pizza and flat screen TVs for example.
And so to literature and going straight in for the heavy stuff here, Lemony Snicket says “Love can change a person, the way a parent can change a baby — awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess”. That's….… not so nice, sounds like it's more of a screaming struggle than something people would actually want to do voluntarily.
Ambrose Bierce, with the characteristic wryness of The Devil's Dictionary writes “Love. Noun. A temporary insanity curable only by marriage.” Well let's hope that's not going to be the case either. Doesn't anybody have a decent, preferably non cheesy, idea of love?
Luckily there are some less tongue in cheeks examples out there. Katharine Hepburn Says “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything”. Now that's MUCH nicer the idea that love is something you give to someone and that something is everything you have, although I don't think Lizzy is all that bothered about Ian's Marvel collection.
But should we even love at all, because let's be honest the examples so far are confusing at best and exhausting at worst. Philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, he of great wisdom, comes to the rescue and says “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” Ohhhhhh deep, now we're getting somewhere, so it's a great and rewarding thing to love someone, phew.
Good old Will Shakespeare gets closer with “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind” so as long as we're happy not looking at each other we'll all be fine? Or am I missing the point?
However, in the long search, and it has been long, perhaps the truest definition of love, I have found, comes from Agatha Christie, who said “It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous and finding them funny that you realise just how much you love them”. I like that one. So there you go. Love is, looking, acting or dancing like a muppet and being with someone who still wants to smile at you,even though you are a bit of a numpty. So that's it.
That's love.
Job done.
